Patient involvement in decision-making
answer
Post 1
Patient involvement in decision-making solidifies a doctor-patient partnership scenario, which creates a good relationship for care delivery and enhances openness in making decisions with consideration of all aspects, be it financial, psychological, or social. Engagement of patients also helps doctors easily elicit patient preferences, making it easier to determine the best decisions, hence arriving at a win-win situation. Similarly, the inclusion of patient preference enables the doctor to give the patient enough information and make him/her understand all the options and the outcome of each. In return, the resultant decision always has better adherence to reduce instances of readmission or patient dissatisfaction (Say and Thomson, 2003).
Through patient aid in decision making, the doctor can present the risks associated with a particular decision. This helps both weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the available decision and settle for the most appropriate one. In most cases, patient preferences come from alternative sources like the internet, which may be misleading, incomplete, or just relative. Identification of their priorities and why they believe in the decision helps the doctor first appreciate their desire to fully understand their condition and offer professional advice that may support their preference, build on it, or even rectify with reasons in a partnership relationship.
Post 2
Patient preferences constantly broaden the doctor’s scope of the available treatment alternatives. This is so beneficial, especially for patients facing complex treatment choices. Similarly, once preferences have been put forth, they can easily be linked with treatment recommendations, thus customizing the particular patient (Brennan and Strombom, 1998). This helps both physical healing and psychological satisfaction and builds trust in the doctor.
Responses
Response to post 1
Establishing a patient-doctor partnership requires time and skills development. There is a need to develop a scheme where one patient is majorly treated by one particular doctor, who will master or document their preferences in the early visits. This reduces the regular discussions of preferences, thus lessening the consultation time. However, this is difficult to achieve since patients seek medical attention based on convenience, and the care delivered may be multidisciplinary. Similarly, doctors need to harness appropriate communication skills that help elicit patient preferences and develop trust, thus engaging them in decision making. Due to variability in patients’ personalities, it might be challenging to produce choices from certain patients’ groups. Some patients highly depend on doctor’s decisions, while others prefer getting enough information from various sources before giving their preferences. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the patient with all relevant information with clarity before asking for their choices. Furthermore, decision-making should be a joint effort through partnership (Peek et al., 2013).
No matter the patient’s source of information, the preferences and eventual outcome depends on how well they have understood information. A patient may give choices based on alternative sources. However, the doctor should always build on this by providing more information that is clear, non-biased to ensure that patient preferences will be based on facts and not misconceptions. Doctors should always avoid presenting risks using numerical data. This narrows down to essential communication skills that make it possible for the patient to make accurate decisions.
Response to post 1
Computerized systems in the delivery of care help provide alternative treatment options once the doctor receives patient information and preferences. One unique system is the Shared Decision-making Program (SDP). Such a system helps improve the patient’s overall outcome by relaying appropriate information inclusive of the risks and enhancing patient-doctor satisfaction. The systems also reduce the cost of care by reducing medical errors where patient preferences are documented and highly customized alternatives (Veroff et al., 2013). Furthermore, the systems aid in keeping records of patient preferences, thus reducing the need for regular discussions and thus reduce overall consultation time. HealthTouch is another unique system that links patient preference with treatment recommendations that best suit the patient without extensive clinical involvement (Brennan and Strombom, 1998).
Patient involvement in decision-making
References
Say, R. E., & Thomson, R. (2003). The importance of patient preferences in treatment decisions–challenges for doctors. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 327(7414), 542– 545. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7414.542
Brennan, P. F., & Strombom, I. (1998). Improving health care by understanding patient preferences: the role of computer technology. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA, 5(3), 257– 262. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.1998.0050257
Peek, M. E., Gorawara-Bhat, R., Quinn, M. T., Odoms-Young, A., Wilson, S. C., & Chin, M. H. (2013). Patient trust in physicians and shared decision-making among African- Americans with diabetes. Health communication, 28(6), 616– 623. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2012.710873
Veroff, D., Marr, A., & Wennberg, D. E. (2013). Enhanced support for shared decision- making reduced costs of care for patients with preference-sensitive conditions. Health affairs (Project Hope), 32(2), 285–293. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0941
Patient involvement in decision-making
Question
Respond to offer alternative views on the impact of patient preferences on treatment plans or outcomes, or the potential impact of patient decision aids on situations like the one shared.